Users who wear earpieces may encounter many different environments running, jogging, or otherwise traveling during a given time period. On a daily basis people are subjected to a variety of noises of varying amplitude. These sources of noise affect a person's quality of life in a number of ways ranging from simple annoyance to noise induced fatigue and even hearing loss. Common sources of noise include those related to travel, e.g., subway trains, motorcycles, aircraft engine and wind noise, etc., and those related to one's occupation, e.g., factory equipment, chain saws, pneumatic drills, lawn mowers, hedgers, etc.
To help alleviate background noise while providing a source of entertainment, many people listen to music or other audio programming via a set of earpieces. Unfortunately, the use of earpieces may also lead to problematic, even dangerous situations if the user is unable to hear the various auditory cues and warnings commonly relied upon in day to day living (e.g., warning announcements, sirens, alarms, car horns, barking dogs, etc.). Accordingly, what is needed is a system provides its users with the benefits associated with headphones without their inherent drawbacks and limitations. Further, depending on the circumstances, a user may wish to modify how certain types of ambient sounds are heard depending on the user's location or preferences. What is needed is a system and method of ambient environmental sound field manipulation based on user defined voice and audio recognition pattern analysis.